Tuesday, June 8, 2010

You might think this website loves giving conservative activist John Smithson some free publicity, but the point of these articles regarding his website, Midknight Review, is to indicate to the readers of both sites that Smithson's claims regarding this site being plagairized from his is completely false. Today's installment of Midknight Review watch involves yet another improperly cited work.

On June 8th, John Smithson posted an article. Below is how it appears on his website:

The article does not include any of Smithson's trademark editorial notes at the beginning or end of this post, beginning with the pronoun "I." This gives the appearance that Smithson authored the piece, but when you get to the bottom of the article, you will notice a footer in italics that reference a "Mr. Klein."

Who is Mr. Klein? According to the footer, the above article is "based on an article published in the May 2010 issue of the journal [Mr. Klein] edits. This implies that John Smithson wrote this article based on the work previously published in Econ Journal Watch.

Looking at the two, one would notice that the two are exactly identical, down to the footer at the bottom of the article, except for the last sentence that includes a link to the original op-ed piece. Smithson's footer stated that "his article appeared in The Wall Street Journal." Based on all the information present, the reader would most likely believe it is referring to the op-ed and not the article based on the op-ed.

After my last article detailing John Smithson's improper citations, Smithson responded stating that his crediting "remains at the same high standard it has been from the beginning." He then goes on to attack this site by calling these articles nothing more then "cut and paste tripe." I was not aware that screen shots comparing his articles to the original articles was considered "the real problem" (maybe for him). I simply pointed out the similarities and where a reader can become confused about the true source of the article.

Smithson compared his citations to a recent article of mine that displayed a chart, questioning if the chart was of my own creation or "another's." I guess Smithson failed to notice that I linked to the exact page where I entered information into a couple fields that generated the chart. I guess you can say that the chart was partially my creation, being that I used Compete's software to create it. If we follow Smithson's logic, every spreadsheet created in Excel is property of Microsoft.

Again, I post about Smithson's Midknight Reviewto shed light on the accusations made by Smithson against this site, proving that such accusations are baseless and without merit.

Update - Since this article was published earlier in the day, John Smithson had updated his post, adding the following to his footer:

According to Smithson, I am a "liberal pundit out of New York" who is "confused," supposedly supporting Mr. Klein's premise for his article, but it seems that Smithson is mistaken on two things - I am not a liberal and I am not operating out of New York. Maybe Smithson should get his facts straight...

The footer makes it clear that the article is based on an op-ed by Klein. Even Klein's own piece puts his name at the top...

Also, again, there is a difference between slander and libel, and this blog is guilty of neither of them.

Your accusation that this blog is plagiarized off your blog's title is libelous. As I had pointed out in my article, the chart was noted and linked to, and the actual chart was created by myself using the website's software.

Ah ah ahhhhhhh . That chart is not referenced - certainly not in a clear and obvious way.

You misquote, outright lie about folks, pretend to have debates when, in fact, you are only arguing with others in the "comment section." You even had a sidebar dedicated to it. I write about Obama and you try to find something wrong with the manner of the post.

I charge that 97% of American poor have color tv sets and you come up with some nonsense that I didn't count the black and white sets.

I post an article that verifies the notion that liberals are poorly informed as they compare to conservatives and you waste time arguing points that have absolutely nothing to do with the article's claim -- proving the point of the post.

I write and post articles over and over that support the ineptness of Hussein Obama and you go elsewhere with your editing.

And this is exactly why folks like me are winning the blog wars. We stay on issue. Folks like you and the Marxists at Think Progress, Huffington Post and on and on spend all your time with personal attacks. Such does not change minds. The constant and factual barriage of information is what wins the philosophical battles. So, keep doing what you are doing. My side loves it.

I don't misquote people and I definitely don't lie about people, and exchanging comments back and forth online is a form of debate - hence the name of the commenting provider IntenseDebate. I also don't try to find things wrong with your post. I exercise the same level of scrutiny when reading your posts and I have opinions. You should be happy that you have created such a loyal reader.

Now about the particulars you reference:

The television comment - I pointed out that you cite a statistic stating a certain percentage of the poor (97%) have color televisions. I thought that statistic is rather pointless, and thought it was humorous that it differentiated between color and B&W televisions.

The poorly informed liberal claim - I didn't care about the content of the article. If you haven't noticed, a big focus on the articles here that reference your cite is based on your improper citation. That is because of your plagiarism claims against this cite - what you referred to as "tit for tat."

As for your constant posting about the president, I disagree with your assessment and find your positions extremely biased, which is to be expected from a conservative activist.

You claim I spend all my time on personal attacks when in reality, you are the one who begun such attacks, calling me a "grunt" and then proceeding to insult this site. I simply fact check your articles and criticize your formatting which is less then forthright.

It are your articles that deviate from the point, coming to exotic conclusions for such mundane little events, and your faith and political beliefs seem to cloud your ability to reason. Where were you when I made posts that analyzed your support for abortion or were in response to questions you had asked of me? You were nowhere to be found, stating that you had better things to do then visit my site, yet here you are today going back and forth...